Raids On Ira Strongholds Fail To Yield Stolen Money

The World - In Brief

December 25, 2004

BELFAST, Northern Ireland -- Police raided properties Friday in two Irish Republican Army strongholds of Belfast in search of the $42.5 million stolen this week from a bank's underground vault. Among the properties searched was the home of Eddie Copeland, a reputed IRA commander in Ardoyne, a hard-line Catholic enclave of north Belfast. Scores of officers also searched properties in Catholic west Belfast, the primary power base of the IRA-linked Sinn Fein party. But they did not report any progress.